


Help?! My Teacher is a Youkai!

by godmedallion



Category: Touhou Project
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-09
Updated: 2020-01-09
Packaged: 2021-02-20 11:23:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,062
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22183108
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/godmedallion/pseuds/godmedallion
Summary: Sumireko Usami enters the world of higher education only to discover that one of her teachers isn't what she seems. Or is she?
Comments: 6
Kudos: 56





	Help?! My Teacher is a Youkai!

“Hey, Reimu, what could you tell me about Yakumo Yukari?”

* * *

As a naturally talented genius, it had been Sumireko’s choice of universities upon graduation. It had disappointed her parents, then, when she’d chosen a lesser-known one closer to home than one of the more prestigious ones. They’d almost gotten into an argument over it, but she’d had her heart set upon it.

It just seemed more interesting than the others. Its list of subjects contained excitingly-named subjects like “History of Human Curiosity” and “Quantum Disunification”. But it was when she’d noticed the subject named “Modern Occultism” that she’d made up her mind.

Its summary was brief enough: “An examination of the past, present, and future of the occult, and its applications to the modern era.” She’d never be able to forgive herself if she let such a chance slip past her.

So, in spite of her parents’ protests, she enrolled. Unfortunately for her, the first two of her excitingly-named subjects were much like any other class she’d been through - the material was simple enough for those encountering it for the first time, so she’d read through the relevant chapters of her overpriced textbooks in the first hour and then gone to sleep, wandering through Gensokyo in place of the seemingly inevitable tedium of her regular life as she usually did.

Modern Occultism didn’t have a textbook. In fact, it didn’t seem to have anything attached to it beyond the note saying the time and date that the weekly lecture would be held. Despite that, she wasn’t holding out hope, already wondering if she’d be able to go to one of the other universities after all for more of a challenge, perhaps.

The class almost started poorly, too. A half-empty lecture hall full of a lot of people who, like her, seemed more curious about what the deal with this subject _was_ than the subject itself. Worse, the lecturer didn’t immediately show up, and after fifteen minutes people were beginning to mutter about leaving when someone finally walked in and took their place behind the lectern.

She glanced around the room calmly. “There are more of you than usual, hmm.” Her voice was calm, collected; slightly deeper than you’d expect, and with an accent Sumireko couldn’t _quite_ place. Familiar, too. She continued to look around the room. “Well, I doubt you’ll all last long. This is a difficult subject at the best of times. In fact, I’m sure you’re all expecting a subject called ‘Modern Occultism’ to be a pushover. After all, what purpose does the occult hold in our modern lives?” She smiled, a smile that knew more than it was saying. “The occult is everywhere. Our faith in the molecule, in the stars, in that which we cannot observe, is occult. The names have changed, but the faces are the same. It's not my place to hold aspirations of grandeur, claim that by taking this course I'll tear down the boundaries of your knowledge, and show you all the secrets that the modern world has hidden away. It’s my role to show you that those boundaries were never there to begin with.” She turned around, and tapped the board behind her, which suddenly lit up, and a name appeared on it. The name of the class, and the name of the teacher.

Sumireko recognised it instantly.

She turned back to the class. “My name is Yakumo Yukari, and I’d like to welcome you to Modern Occultism.”

* * *

Reimu scowled at the question. “Yukari? She’s a menace. She comes and goes whenever she pleases and always causes problems in her wake. Sometimes she’ll show up to help solve an incident, but…” Her scowl deepened. “...I don’t even like how she does _that_. In short, you should avoid her.”

“I might not have a choice.”

* * *

The class might almost have been incomprehensible -- a bizarre mixture of philosophy, physics, history, and ‘magical theory’ -- but Sumireko drank up every word of it. She almost forgot who the lecturer was, wrapped up in a haze of new ideas and surreal concepts. When the three hours were over, and she closed up with a simple “That’s all for today. I’ll see you all next week,” it felt like the air rushing out of a balloon. It took a minute for everyone to catch themselves, to draw themselves back to reality - and by the time they did, Yakumo Yukari was gone. The lectern was empty once more, and the board was the dull black of an inactive computer.

The class left chattering, but Sumireko sat at her desk. She glanced down at her notes, and found them covered in bizarre non-sequiturs and random sentences -- the phrase ‘The gates of creation are not built of atoms but of the empty space between’ popped up between the words ‘spells’ and ‘entropy’, but if this had any significance it was already beginning to fade.

It gradually dawned on Sumireko that she might have just been fed three hours of incredibly compelling complete bullshit.

* * *

“And you’re sure it’s Yukari?”

“I mean, how many people can there be out there named ‘Yakumo Yukari’? And she looked the same as the youkai I met during the Perfect Possession incident, at least in terms of like, hair colour and eye colour and stuff.”

“Do you think she recognised you?”

“I can’t see how she wouldn’t have, but…”

A piercing violet gaze. A smile that knew more than it said.

“…somehow, I don’t think she did. She didn’t look at me any more than anyone else, at least.”

Reimu was silent at that. After a moment, she finally said, “…I don’t think there’s much you can do. Just try to keep your head down, and don’t confront her.”

* * *

It was during the second week that Sumireko confronted Yukari.

She’d made sure, this time, to sit near the door, so that when class finished and Yukari left she could immediately jump up and follow her. She’d had to leave her notes and bag at the desk, but she managed to bolt around the corner before Yukari could vanish.

“Yakumo Yukari!” she yelled, her voice echoing through the hallways. Other students turned and stared, but she stayed resolute as the other woman also turned to look at her.

“Hm… Usami Sumireko, was it?” she replied. Her eyes glittered, and her smile was calm, if slightly bemused. “There are less embarrassing ways to ask me something. I _do_ have an office, you know.”

“I know who you are!” Sumireko continued, unfazed. “And you’re going to tell me what you’re doing here!”

Yukari’s bemused expression grew to encompass her entire face. “I’d say I’m being an educator. An unorthodox one, perhaps, but you seem to enjoy my lectures well-enough, so I’m not sure--”

“Not about that!” interrupted Sumireko. “About Gensokyo!”

Violet eyes that shone like a dying star drawn into a black hole pierced straight through her.

“Gen… sokyo?” she replied. “Is that another school? Have we met before, perhaps?”

Sumireko could feel herself beginning to lose momentum. “Of course we’ve met! I met you in Gensokyo! During that incident with the Yorigami sisters and the Dream World!”

Yukari simply stared back. “I’m… not entirely sure what you’re talking about, sorry. The Dream World is a hypothetical I used, but it’s nothing more than that. Have you been getting enough sleep, Miss Usami?”

“You-- you know I have!” she replied. “That’s where I met you!”

Yukari’s expression was a mask for a moment, and then she began laughing. “You’re saying that you met me in your dreams? That’s very flattering, I suppose. …Though, it’s also probably a sign that you do need to get more rest. I hope you’re feeling better by next week, Miss Usami.”

And she turned and walked away.

* * *

Reimu’s face was in her hands. She was making some kind of noise, but Sumireko couldn’t tell if she was laughing or dying of second-hand embarrassment. Given that Reimu had never been one to feel any kind of embarrassment, it was probably the former.

After a moment, she relaxed, and wiped her eyes. “Oh, I’m gonna have to tell Marisa that next time she shows up. I don’t know if it’d be funnier if that _was_ Yukari or not.”

“Well, who else could it be?”

Reimu shrugged. “A regular person? She doesn’t sound much weirder than the teachers we’ve got here.”

“This isn’t helping, you know. I’d ideally like to know what I can do to defeat her before she turns us all into juice or something.”

Reimu stared back at her with an inscrutable expression. “You--” she started, hesitatingly, “you came to ask me... for tips… on fighting Yukari…?”

She began laughing again.

* * *

The next week, after another incomprehensible lecture, she took a subtler approach, known as ‘visiting Yukari’s office during her visiting hours’.

She knocked on the door, and after the traditional “come in”, found the lecturer lazily slumped in a reclining chair in front of a state-of-the-art computer, in a room that was filled with seemingly hundreds of occult objects. Sumireko almost forgot what she’d come to do as she looked around in amazement.

“A lot of them are fakes, unfortunately,” said Yukari, interrupting Sumireko’s train of thought. “Even some of the ones I have real versions of are fake, because people kept pinching them. It was a real hassle buying them back from the same people who stole them.” A pause, and then, “And no, even if they’re fake, that doesn’t mean you can have any. So, how can I help you?”

“I just want to know why you’re here.”

Yukari rubbed her forehead. “This again… I do have students coming to me for help, and yours isn’t my only class. I’ve never been to Gensokyo. I don’t even think there _is_ such a place. I looked it up and couldn’t find anything. And I don’t--”

“I thought you’d say that!” interrupted Sumireko. “Which is why I enlisted some help! I asked Kasen, and she decided she’d arrange a huge event that you couldn’t possibly miss! And it should be happening right now, so--”

Yukari sighed. “I don’t know what you’re on about. If you continue like this--”

“I was leaving anyway, don’t worry! I wouldn’t want you to miss the chance to disappear and head over to Gensokyo! I just thought I’d let you know, since after all, if you vanish, that’s all the proof I need!”

That said, Sumireko bolted out of the office, and ran down the corridors.

She’d actually arranged this earlier. There was a study area two floors up that overlooked Yukari’s office, which meant that she’d _just_ be able to see into the room and see if Yukari was still there. But speed was of the essence; she couldn’t give her an instant to vanish and reappear a few times to give herself a token presence.

Sumireko planted herself in the study area, got out her notes to pretend to be working, and looked straight down to see the lecturer busily playing Minecraft.

For the next four hours, she ceaselessly watched Yukari Yakumo play Minecraft.

Eventually, Yukari got up, and she almost got excited, but then she wandered back a minute later with a cup of coffee. It was a few minutes after that that Sumireko left.

It was only when she was laying in bed that night, thinking of giving up, that she realised that she recognised what Yukari had been making, and was forced to cover her face with a pillow to prevent her audible scream at the realisation.

* * *

“Minecraft?”

“It’s a game where you build things, okay, it’s not important-- Alright, I can already tell you’re thinking something weird.”

“A game where you build things…” Reimu frowned. “Isn’t that just construction work? Where’s the game in that?”

“It’s not important, okay.”

“But she was building the shrine. So what? There’s tons of shrines that look like mine. The Moriya Shrine looks pretty similar, if a _little bit_ nicer. It doesn’t mean anything.”

Sumireko opened her mouth to argue her case, then paused. Suddenly she realised that she _didn’t_ have any concrete reason why she knew it was the Hakurei Shrine, other than that it was _so obviously_ the Hakurei Shrine. How could she even know, from that far away?

“B-but what about the party?”

“The one from a few weeks back that Kasen asked me to throw on _extremely_ short notice? It was a big party, but it always is when someone bothers to invite Suika. And Yukari _was_ there. I think she got into a fight with Kasen over something she was owed or something like that? Or maybe it was the other way around. But she was definitely there.”

Sumireko sagged backwards.

“Was there anything else?” Reimu frowned. “It was interesting at first, but you’re getting a bit repetitive. Too much like your other weird stories.”

Sumireko hesitated.

* * *

So she’d looked up a teacher’s address. It was nothing _weird_ ; just a matter of typing in the name and area and searching through address books until she found it. Yakumo Y.

As would almost have to be expected, it was in a nice area, though not as nice as she’d been expecting. From everything she’d heard of Yakumo Yukari, she was expecting her to live in a mansion or something, but this was just… a nice house.

And she could have left it at that. In fact, she almost did, except that as she was walking to leave, she bumped into a tall, gold-haired woman in a pale blue dress who gazed down at her with sharp, golden eyes. For an instant, she got the impression of a haze of gold flickering around her, almost like--

Then the moment passed, and she was looking up at a tall, blonde westerner with hazel eyes who was looking back down at her in concern. “Sorry to run into you,” she said. “Are you unharmed?”

Sumireko stuttered out a response, but the woman seemed to notice something. “You’ve grazed your knee. Come on, I’ll fix you up.”

Sumireko was subsequently led into Yakumo Yukari’s home.

* * *

The first thing she noticed was that it was larger than it looked.

The second thing she noticed was that it was, despite its size, completely cluttered.

As the woman lead her down the entry hallway and into one of the side doors, Sumireko almost tripped over the assorted objects scattered across the floor, seemingly all having fallen off of the completely overflowing tables and cabinets arranged haphazardly in the hallway. She saw statues, scrolls, orbs, all sorts of occult miscellanea; and among them, random books, toys, and even a few stacks of cups and bowls. All of it was completely spotless; and all of it was completely disorganised.

As the woman opened the side door, she was led into an entirely different world. In this room, everything was neatly arranged; there was a perfectly folded bed in the corner below a large window, a small desk against the opposite wall, and a perfectly dusted bookcase filled with books with complicated-looking titles on the wall opposite the door they entered through.

The woman smiled at her serenely. “This is my room. I’ll just go get the first aid kit… and please wait here.”

She turned and left, and the door slowly closed behind her, before clicking quietly. Sumireko began to look around the room; something that hadn’t been obvious when she entered was a corkboard on the same wall as the door, covered with small notes. Upon examination, though, most of them were either reminders - ‘get milk’, ‘get tofu’, and the like -- or more strange non-sequiturs - ‘moon unsuccessful’ jumped out at her immediately, but ‘calculation of beast impact’ and ‘oil’ were others that stood out to her before the woman returned carrying a small white box -- presumably the first aid kit.

Sumireko wasted no time, this time.

“So who are you?” she asked.

The woman blinked back at her. “Ah, you’re feeling better,” she said, after a moment. “I’m glad. My name is Maria Fuchs. I don’t own this place, in case you’re wondering about the… mess, out there.”

Sumireko nodded. “Yukari lives here, doesn’t she?”

Maria’s expression didn’t change for a moment, and then she smiled. “I was wondering what someone I didn’t recognise was doing around here. You’re Usami Sumireko, right?”

“I, uh--”

Maria laughed quietly. “Don’t worry. Yukari’s been telling me about you. Honestly, she expected something like this, though not quite so soon…” She knelt down, examining the cut on Sumireko’s knee. “It’ll get infected if left like this. But if I just…”

She opened the first aid kit, revealing a case full of small vials. Carefully selecting one, she held it over her hand, letting a single white droplet fall into her palm, which she then carefully placed on Sumireko’s knee. There was a slight sizzling sound, but Sumireko didn’t feel anything, and when she took her hand away, the cut resembled a day-old scar.

Maria smiled. “Be careful, or it’ll break open. It’s a special remedy I’ve been working on, made from some rare plants from Yukari’s travels. I’m hoping to be able to mass-produce it, but… it’s difficult with such rare ingredients, unfortunately.”

“I’m sorry to make you use it, then,” said Sumireko quietly.

“Don’t be. It wouldn’t get used, otherwise. Now then… what did you come here for, anyway?” Her smile widened, revealing brilliantly white teeth. “Just wanted to see if Yukari did actually have a house?”

Sumireko blushed. “Uh… pretty much, yeah…”

“You’re really sure she’s… What was the term she used…” She gazed down at Sumireko, silently waiting for her to finish the sentence.

“...from Gensokyo…” she mumbled. Talking to someone in Yukari’s house drove home how ridiculous it all sounded, even if it were true.

Maria nodded. “That was it. Don’t worry, she tells me that she finds it amusing, actually. And she’s been telling me you’re one of her best students. So I won’t tell her that you were here, huh?”

Sumireko nodded silently in response.

“You’re good to go now, but...” Maria turned towards the door. “Before you go, would you like to look at her study? She’s out right now, and I wonder if just a peek wouldn’t go far astray?”

The sudden request -- even taking into account the rapidly-changing tone of the conversation -- took Sumireko by surprise. “I-- yeah? If I could?”

So Maria led her down the cluttered hallway to the doorway right at the end, and opened it to reveal a small, cramped room, half the size of Maria’s own, but filled with piles of books and overflowing bookshelves. In the centre was an ornate wooden desk with more books, and heaps of paper held down by small collections of stationery. Behind it, a regular spinning office chair that you could find anywhere, and behind that, a huge window that took up the entire opposite wall, framing the room in the light of the afternoon sun.

Sumireko went to touch one of the books, but Maria gently grabbed her hand before she could. “Best not,” she said calmly. “If you cause a mess, I doubt you’d be able to get it looking how it did before, especially not before Yukari gets back. I just thought you’d be interested.”

Sumireko nodded in response. “This has been, uh-- thank you, I--”

Maria’s unfaltering smile widened once again. “Come on, then. If you want me to drop you off at a station, let me know.”

“I’ll be fine,” replied Sumireko. As they reached the doorway, she nodded quickly, said a final “thank you”, and with that same smile as ever, Maria slammed the door in her face, and there was a sudden feeling that out in the afternoon sun, Sumireko had snapped back into reality.

* * *

“And?”

“And what?”

“And is that all that happened? You went to her house, met some weird woman, found it full of garbage, and left?” Reimu pouted. “You had me all hyped up and everything… you know Yukari’s house is one of Gensokyo’s great mysteries, right? It should’ve been like the Scarlet Devil Mansion, or Hakugyokurou, or something!” She leant backwards, resting herself against the wooden floorboards and looking up at the stars. “It’s annoying to find out that it’s just a regular house. That is, if you’re still sure it’s Yukari.”

“I… I’m pretty sure,” replied Sumireko. “It was almost… too normal? Even though everything that woman did was really weird… It felt like she was trying to give a youkai's idea of a human eccentric.”

“So she bought a house just to fool you? Even Yukari--” Reimu paused. “Actually, she probably would. Hey, describe the weirdo woman again?”

“Uh…” Sumireko thought back. “She was tall, and she had blonde hair, and…” She frowned. “She…”

She had piercing golden eyes, sharp white teeth, and nine flickering tails.

“She had brown eyes, I think? Sorta yellow-ish, brown-ish?”

“Hmm.”

Reimu was silent for a long while, simply laying back and looking up at the stars, as if willing them to give her answers.

“My advice…” she said, “is to not worry about it. I don’t think she’s going to attack you or anything, since she would have already, so just…” She scowled. “There’s nothing you can do about Yukari, unfortunately. If she seems like she’s going to do something, maybe you can call Kasen?”

“With what? She doesn’t have a phone?”

Reimu shrugged. “I still don’t get this whole phone thing. Just yell really loud, maybe. She’s got good ears, after all.”

Sumireko flopped backwards so that she was also lying down next to Reimu. “Just so you know, you haven’t been any help at all.”

“It’s Yukari. All the help in the world wouldn’t help you.”

* * *

And so the weeks continued to pass.

As Yukari had predicted, Modern Occultism's attendance gradually thinned out, and by the final week there were maybe a dozen people left.

At the end of her final lecture, she smiled at those remaining instead of walking off as she usually would. “I’m sure you’ve all been wondering about how I grade this subject. Perhaps I just pass everyone willing to stick around? Or I look over all your notes to see who’s been paying attention?” She took a small pile of papers from under the lectern. “During the exam period, there’ll be -- well, an exam. It’s quite a simple one, really. There are ten questions, and you can choose any five to answer. Your grades will depend both upon which questions you select and your responses. As this is important, I’ll naturally give you all the questions, here,” and she set the papers down on a table beside the lectern, “and you can prepare yourself for which questions you feel capable of answering. Alternately, you can all feel free to quit this subject at any time, without penalty.” She turned to walk off, and said airily as she left, “I’ll look forwards to seeing how many of you choose to stick around for the final hurdle.”

Quietly muttering, the last few other students collected their papers and left, leaving Sumireko alone for a moment. She went down to collect the paper, and quickly scanned it, then scanned it again, more slowly.

‘No written notes, no electronic devices, no precognition permitted within the exam location.’ was written right at the top, underneath the subject name and the exact date and time, but it was closely followed by the list of questions themselves. ‘Can you hold the moon in your hand?’, ‘Is an illusion you behold more real than a reality you are only told about?’, and ‘If thoughts are lightning, what difference is there between man and nature?’ were the most esoteric and pretentious, but they all were to some degree. All the way down the list to the final question, ‘What is the occult to you?’, it was the oblique, often surreal, often nonsensical deluge of thought-provoking meaninglessness that Yukari had been cheerfully dispensing for the entire semester.

* * *

Still, it came as a huge surprise for Sumireko to enter the lecture hall one last time two weeks later and find it empty.

At first she thought it’d been a mistake, but as she turned to leave, Yukari’s voice interrupted.

“This is the correct room, Miss Usami.”

Unnoticed, Yukari had been lying across a group of seats near the back, and had risen upon hearing her enter. She smiled down at Sumireko. “Seems like you’re the only one who showed up. Everyone else's already dropped it.” She gestured at the empty hall. “Take a seat, and begin when you’re ready. I’ve already got my stopwatch ready, I was just waiting for someone to arrive.”

Consciously aware of the bizarre situation, Sumireko took a seat near the middle, watched by Yukari the entire time, took out her stationery and some lined paper -- as requested -- and began to write.

The only sound was the scratching of her pen against the paper. Occasionally she would glance back to see Yukari still watching her with the same careful, steady expression. But other than that, she wrote for two hours, carefully thinking about her answers to the bizarre questions she’d been given.

Finally, she put her pen down, and glanced back. Yukari shrugged. “You’ve still got another hour, if you want to think about it some more.”

Sumireko nodded, and leant forwards. Then, slowly, she began to fall asleep.

* * *

“I hope you weren’t going to ask anyone for help.”

Sumireko’s eyes snapped open, and she found herself in - well, she wasn’t sure. An empty space, filled with colour and void and noise that would have been unbearable if it wasn’t completely muffled. The illusion of light and sound. In front of her was another shadow in a world of shadows, a silhouette against complete blackness that smiled a familiar smile.

“Yukari?” she asked, hesitantly, knowing the answer.

“You know, I’m not sure about some of these answers.”

The voice came from all around her, and the silhouette was suddenly gone, replaced by the impression of a well-dressed woman sitting in an incongruously cheap-looking plastic spinning chair.

“Then again, I suppose I’m not sure about the questions, so it matches up. After all -- ‘why are you here?’, ‘why are you doing this?’ -- they’re not very good questions, are they?”

“Are you--”

The woman glanced up at her, as if noticing her for the first time, only for the formless void to overwhelm her once more, leaving Sumireko floating in space.

“You’re in a dream, Sumireko. But then, maybe you’ve always been in a dream? The privilege of existing within both dreams and reality is shared by only a few. Cherish it whilst it lasts.”

“What--”

“‘Is an illusion you behold more real than a reality you are only told about?’ I was hoping for a good answer to this one. But it’s the wrong question, I suppose. So tell me, Sumireko - which is the dream? Which Yukari is the real one?”

“Aren’t they both real?” She frowned. “If she’s not you, then…”

Laughter.

“If both Yukaris are real, then both Sumirekos must also be real, and we both know that that cannot be the case. So which one is real? Are you real? Where are you right now?”

The lightless light began to fluctuate, throwing colourless rainbows across Sumireko’s field of vision.

“Consider that the bonus question for this exam. Full marks if you get it right.”

There was a sensation of falling, and then--

Something collided with the back of Sumireko’s head, and she jolted awake. She looked up to see Yukari staring back at her innocently, and then looking down to see a small plastic ball about the size of a tennis ball rolling away from her.

“You’ve got another fifteen minutes left,” said Yukari. “I thought you might want to review your answers, and maybe check if you’ve drooled over any of it.”

Sumireko looked down to see that, although she hadn’t drooled, her answers on the topmost page were slightly smudged. She frowned and began to clean them, writing over the old letters, not even thinking about what she was writing, until she finished the page and noticed that she’d written something entirely different to what she’d meant to.

_Where are you right now?_

The little stopwatch in Yukari’s hand buzzed, and Sumireko handed over her notes, gathered her things, and left.

* * *

“And then?”

“Oh, I got my results back a few days ago, and I passed. And I looked her up, and she’s still on the registry of lecturers and stuff, so it’s not like she’s vanished or anything.”

Reimu nodded. “I was wondering if she’d vanish too, but apparently not… Ahh, it’s too weird. What’s Yukari doing as a teacher, anyway…”

“A teacher, you say?”

The woman in question appeared above them, emerging from a gap about two feet above their heads and smiling down at them. Reimu scowled back.

“What was I teaching, then?”

“Modern Occultism,” replied Sumireko. Yukari raised her eyebrows.

“Me, teaching Modern Occultism?” she said in surprise. “That’s awfully prestigious! I’m rather surprised, actually. You’d think I’d go for something easier, like one of the philosophy subjects.”

“So… so that really wasn’t you…?” asked Sumireko.

“Not as far as I’m aware,” replied Yukari. “But who knows~! Maybe I’ll get around to it one day. They say there’s no time like the present, but the boundary between past and future is so thin these days…” She paused, thinking for a moment. “Was I a good teacher?”

“Well…” started Sumireko.

“Apparently, your lectures were complete nonsense, and you drove all your students away, other than Sumireko,” stated Reimu calmly.

“That's how it's supposed to be. It wouldn't be Modern Occultism otherwise~” She jumped out of the gap, landing gently on her feet next to the pair. “I do wonder, though… but I suppose I’ll find out in time. Would you be going back for the next semester?”

Sumireko blinked. “The next…?”

Yukari's ever-present smile widened to a grin. “Oh, you weren’t aware? Modern Occultism takes two years to complete. And I hope that this time, you’ll keep me informed of how you’re going~! If you’re apparently one of my favourite students, I’d love to hear your progress in advance.”

_Which Yukari is the real one?_

Sumireko’s look of shock slowly faded into a small smile. “Of course, Miss Yakumo.”

**Author's Note:**

> Sorry about the vague summary, by the way, but there isn't much that I can say about this? It's my first work that I've published in a while, my first work for a fandom of any real scale... and it's a vaguely confusing character piece that doesn't even really resolve the central question. Whoops.
> 
> Anyway, I hope you enjoy!
> 
> PS. In case you were wondering, I didn't tag Ran since she isn't really in this story, and I didn't want to disappoint anyone looking her up only to find that she's in this for a single segment and isn't even going by 'Ran Yakumo', so...  
> PPS. I'm still not used to AO3's tagging system so I tagged it as 'teen and up' because of the one (1) swear, but someone let me know if that's a weird thing to do.


End file.
